Holiday Gift Guide 7: High Touch Books, Part Deux

Continuing on with my suggestions for high touch books, I'm going to throw you a curveball in the form of Journal: The Short Life and Mysterious Death of Amy Zoe Mason.

If you've ever cruised the scrapbooking/collage/altered book craft scene you'll immediately recognize where this book is coming from. Like those websites it's filled with tastefully arranged collage pages set down by a suburban mom. All the tropes of that subculture are here- re-purposed vintage ephemera, artfully cute tributes to precious family moments, warm and wonderful color treatments, and a veritable tidal wave of happy memories.

And under that is a horrific story of lust, betrayal, and madness.

I'll be upfront and admit that this book isn't going to appeal to everyone. Hell, it didn't even appeal to me when my Significant Other bought it. She's heavily into the scrapbooking thing and thought it looked like an interesting attempt at narrative fiction via collage. On that count it succeeds, but I have a feeling it went in a direction that the target audience really, really didn't like. I, on the other hand, couldn't believe a book that goes to such dark places, albeit with some very subtle touches, was packaged up with a veneer of pink ribbons and Grandma's doilies. It's as if David Lynch hijacked a Martha Stewart project, and the results are glorious.

Again, you're either going to love this book or hate it. That said, there are a bunch of used copies available for a penny, so you can take it for a spin without breaking the bank.

Finally, we come what's probably the highest achievement of the high touch approach, as well as an example of how it can go wrong. I'm talking about Personal Effects: Dark Art by J. C. Hutchins and Jordan Weisman.

Here's how Hutchins' website describes the book:

Dark Art follows the extensive notes of art therapist Zach Taylor’s investigation into the life and madness of Martin Grace, an accused serial killer who claims to have foreseen, but not caused, his victims’ deaths. The items among Grace’s personal effects are the keys to understanding his haunted past ... and finding the terrifying truth the patient hoped to keep buried.

The narrative is tightly tied into the included "personal effects", and the producers didn't skimp on either quality or quantity. There are so many inserts and documents, ranging from business cards and Polaroids to police reports and official paper, that it can be difficult to actually lay the book out flat for reading. The effort that went into the art direction for the project really hits home when you actually lay out the dozens of items on a tabletop. Each bit is unique, with a fantastic mix of graphic styles and varying paper stocks on display. It's prop document heaven.

The close integration of all these delightful props with the story is the highlight of the book. Unfortunately, it's also one of the biggest flaws. As part of the "transmedia" approach the book makes multiple references to online assets that the reader can explore to get more information. Unfortunately, most of them have simply vanished since the book's original publication in 2009.

That's a jarring oversight that immediately breaks the immersion the authors have spent so much time and effort developing. What makes it particularly odd is that phone numbers and automated voice mail systems connected to the story are still active. I can understand that the publisher wasn't planning on converting "Dark Arts" into a long-term backlist title, but establishing an archival copy of the assets seems like a no brainer. This is, after all, a project that touts it's technological savvy and multi-media approach as a major selling point.

Beyond it's innate entertainment value I think "Personal Effects: Dark Art" is a good example of how to use both physical and virtual accessories to move a story along, with the obvious caveat about having the online portion actually available.   Even with it's flaws it provides a tantalizing hint of the possibilities of the high touch approach to storytelling.

Holiday Gift Guide 7: High Touch Books

I doubt I have to describe the pleasures of a good book to anyone reading this. That feeling of being transported by a story, of being taken to another place and time, is a sensation I absolutely love. The only drawback is the inevitable shock when you look at the clock and realize you've been reading well into the night. You really, really have to get some sleep...but a few more pages won't hurt. Or another chapter. Or two.

That level of story involvement comes from an author's ability to immerse you in their world. Well crafted prose has an almost magical ability to build up an alternate reality that you inhabit for the length of the story, and sometimes beyond. But words alone aren't the only way to do that.

Over the years there have been a number of writers that have explored the use of prop documents and inserts to help bring their stories to life.  I've taken to calling the result "high touch books", since being given a piece of the author's world is such an important part of the experience.  When done well, with the production quality of the faux paperwork complimenting the actual content, it's incredibly engaging. 

The earliest examples are the Crime Dossiers from Dennis Wheatley and J.G. Links.  These were a series of four murder mysteries first produced in the 1930's and since reprinted several times in increasingly less impressive editions.  The defining conceit of the mysteries is that they're actual dossiers containing all the details of a crime, including interview transcripts, crime scene photos, faux telegrams, and physical evidence (like cigarette butts) gathered at scene.  Sadly, the reprints replace all of those nifty inserts with photographs, but they're still great examples of an interactive whodunit. I've sung their praises before, and have since assembled a complete set.

The first dossier in the series is Murder Off Miami , featuring an investigation into the death of Bolitho Blane on a passenger ship.  It was followed by Who Killed Robert Prentice, The Malinsay Massacre, and Herewith the Clues, with a noticeable decline in the quality of the mysteries as the series progressed. If you're going to give them a try I'd suggest starting with Murder Off Miami, since it features the most interesting setup and the best use of the gimmick. You can pick up the reprint edition, along with all the other installments, for pocket change from Amazon's used book section.  Copies of the original issue can be found, but they're a bit pricy.

Next up we have something that should be of particular appeal to Lovecraft fans- Shadows in the Asylum: The Case Files of Dr. Charles Marsh by D. A. Stern.

In September of 2004, Dr. Charles Marsh arrived at the Kriegmoor Psychiatric Institute in Bayfield, Wisconsin, anxious to take on his new duties, eager to distance himself from the scandal that had forced him to resign his previous post. Among the patients assigned to Marsh at this time was a young woman named Kari Hansen, a college student who had suffered a nervous collapse during a school-sponsored anthropology dig a year previously. Subsequently, Ms. Hansen began experiencing what hospital records referred to as “a series of vivid hallucinations;” her own words described visions of an “alien” intelligence, a heretofore unknown kind of life form which appeared to her as shadows, often of indeterminate shape, occasionally taking on the form of man. Dr. Marsh came to believe these shadows were real.

This is a real standout. The entire story is told epistolary-style through collected letters, newspaper articles, emails, interview transcripts, scribbled notes, and research reports. What sets it apart is the synergy between the storytelling and the art direction. It strikes just the right balance between moving the story along and the logical constraints of the documentary evidence used to present the narrative. While Stern gets the cover credit I think a great deal of the books effectiveness is thanks to the design work of Matthew De Rhodes. This is a story that builds up the chills with atmosphere, and De Rhodes serves it up in style.

"Shadows in the Asylum" is an entertaining read in and of itself, and on that basis alone it deserves your attention. It's also a nearly perfect example of how to tell an involving story through documents alone. If you're a gamer interested in exploiting prop paperwork to it's maximum the book can serve as a template for your own efforts, including some very subtle examples of how to handle "truth" when dealing with subjective observations. As usual, used copies can be had for a song through Amazon.

I'll have a few more suggestions tomorrow, including the most prop-heavy high touch book of the modern era. You can see the earlier installments of the 2012 Holiday Gift Guide over here.

Under the Sea

Rev. Marx offers up the final installment of his deep sea diving suit build. It includes a step by step construction log for all of his accessories.

So, containment canister on the right and voice box on the left, that still left me needing something in the back of the utility belt. I thought about the storm trooper costumed from Star Wars, and how they had some kind of canister on the back of their belt (I think that's where Luke got the cable he used to swing across the room with Leia in Episode IV). A canister should be fairly easy and quick to make, and didn't need to have any particular function other than to take up space and look utilitarian. So I took a cardboard mailing tube, capped the ends, added a cardboard panel with rivets for texture, painted it brass, and added a couple of pieces of scrap leather belt as trim for more texture. I attached it to the belt with some metal wire through the grommets. Simple and quick.

Cthulhu Fhtagn! McKittrick Edition.

The latest from the gifted Jason McKittrick is this nicely done Cthulhu artifact.

The Retro ARG

This is a bit ranty.

I'm putting together another installment of the Holiday Gift Guide that focuses on prop-heavy books, like the Dennis Wheatley mysteries I've raved about before.  One of the attractions of those dossier-style projects is that they tell a story using a novel mechanism of documents and physical objects.  Spotting the clues and putting them together is fun, but there's a real narrative being built up as the backstory is slowly revealed.  One with engaging characters, interesting twists, and a logical chain of events.

That's something almost totally missing from today's Alternate Reality Games, the spiritual and technological successors to Wheatley's work.  And that's a damn shame. There was a time, not too long ago, when ARGs were filled with possibilities.  They were the perfect venue for bringing interesting stories to life in a multi-media format, a technological embodiment of the epistolary style writers had been using for centuries.

There were hints of what were possible on display during The Beast, the epic tie-in with Kubrick's/Spielberg's "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence", and it's stylistic followup "I Love Bees".   Both games had a massive community of followers dedicated to steadily decoding the bits and bobs of the overall story.  It was a revolutionary approach, but with the benefit of hindsight it's easy to see that the seeds of mediocrity were already being sown.  How?  The increasing reliance on the decoding element of gameplay over the narrative strength of the story.

Today, over a decade later, I can't think of a single ARG that isn't primarily an exercise in cryptography.  Instead of building a strong story game creators are concentrating on ever more obscure encoding schemes.  It's almost risen to the point of self parody.  Discover a website address in viral video.  Visit the website.  Get asked for a password.  Sign up for an email.  Get an email that links to a distorted image.  Try different stenographic techniques to decode the image.  Break the code on the picture to get a phrase, which turns out to be a key for a code imbedded in another email, which gives you access to another webpage that needs a hashtag you can only get by running an audio clip through a spectrum analyzer.  And then, finally, you get access to...a list of corporate officers.

Sweet.  Fancy.  Moses.  What a god awful waste of time.  The player has to jump through multiple hoops and the story has only advanced incrementally, if it all.  It's just like the horrific "grind" that used to characterize online fantasy games.  Bring me ten ghoul ears.  Ding!  Fetch 16 rabbit skins.  Ding!  Lather, rinse, repeat, ad infinitum.

The problem, I think, is the idea that interactivity equals immersiveness.  Designers seem to think that the mere act of tackling ever more elaborate and bizarre encoding schemes means the players are "involved" in the game.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  They're just grinding away, the same way they did when they were a 4th level Wizard hunting spiders in EverQuest.  It's rote busywork carried out solely as a required exercise to get to "the good stuff".  You know, the actual content.  The Story.

Except, sadly, there usually isn't a story.  That's because creating an engaging narrative is a lot harder than running an encryption program.  Developing characters, establishing locations, and nurturing a plot takes time, effort, and skill.  There are vanishingly few people, much less game designers, who can do it well.  Hence the reliance on Ye Old Cryptography Program, because you can pad out even the most inane and amateurish story to epic size by laying on an endless series of passwords, codes, and pointless, illogical puzzles.

I would love to see an ARG that totally rejects the current trend.  Something that returns to the epistolary roots of the genre and tells a story through documents, as Stoker did with "Dracula".  Even better, I'd like it to be grounded in reality and incorporate real historical documents.  If your medium is going to be the internet, use it.  All of those online historical newspaper archives, museum collections, and genealogy databases are an absolute goldmine of material just waiting to be used.

Here's a demonstration of what I think is possible, starting with an actual newspaper clipping. In Firefox you can right click and open the image in a new tab to make the whole easier to read. Just look at how many clues and potential plot hooks are in this single story. Then imagine using faux documents to amplify the story that already exists and take it in a direction the "official" version only hints at.

Vintage Battery Reproductions

One of the things I dearly love about the modern era is the popularization of niche hobbies. No matter how obscure your interest might be there's bound to be someone that shares it. Propnomicon itself is a good example.

What's even cooler is when one of those niche hobbies overlaps your own. I'm only vaguely aware of vintage radio collecting, but these vintage battery label reproductions from Radiola Guy are right up my alley. Need an absolutely authentic battery from the 1920s for a prop project? Take your pick of labels for making your own, or order a fully functional battery. He even has a step by step tutorial for making prop batteries using an off the shelf mailing tube.

The Second Seal

B. de Corbin brings us this intriguing occult artifact, the Second Seal.  Yet more proof that nothing good comes from exploring ancient structures that have risen from the sea.

Just inside was a little cubby, just big enough for the three of us, and there in front of us is another door, an’ across the crack is a metal seal, with a gem set in it. I pried at that second seal with my own knife, and it comes away in my hand, an’ I slips it in my pocket without thinking’ (hang on, he said, I gots it right here, and he tossed The Second Seal on the table) an’ the door opens up, and Skinny Dick slips through.

An’ whaddaya think? The next wall has a crack an’ a seal as well, but I can’t tell what this one was, ‘cept it didn’t look right, but Skinny Dick doesn’t wait for advisement, he outs with his knife and starts right in.

I don’t know what that last seal was, but it was more like flesh than anything else, an’ soon as his knife touches it, it begins to swell and move along Skinny Dick’s knife, an’ when it covers the knife, it moves along his hand, a gem like an eye in it winkin’ at him.